Dennis Brown, 46, drank three of the highly caffeinated beverages before suffering a cardiac arrest in October, according to the suit.
Panera Bread’s highly caffeinated Charged Lemonade is now blamed for a second death, according to a lawsuit filed Monday.
Dennis Brown, of Fleming Island, Florida, drank three Charged Lemonades from a local Panera on Oct. 9 and then suffered a fatal cardiac arrest on his way home, the suit says.
Brown, 46, had an unspecified chromosomal deficiency disorder, a developmental delay and a mild intellectual disability. He lived independently, frequently stopping at Panera after his shifts at a supermarket, the legal complaint says. Because he had high blood pressure, he did not consume energy drinks, it adds.
The point is that it doesn’t have any unusual amount of caffeine for an energy drink. Saying it has the limit in a single cup is misleading when the “cup” is not a normal size.
It’s absolutely typical. Here’s an article comparing 31 popular energy drinks. 3 at around 6-8 mg/FlOz, 16 of them are around 10 mg/FlOz, and the other 12 are in the range of 16-18 mg/FlOz. So that puts Panera right around the average of 12.4
Regarding terminology you might compare “hard lemonade” which has a lot more alcohol in it than is typical for lemonade…
Regarding the cup size, let me introduce you to the big gulp range with a “shocking” 690 mg per ‘cup’. It’s quite surprising but a larger drink contains more caffeine.
It’s absolutely typical. Here’s an article comparing 31 popular energy drinks. 3 at around 6-8 mg/FlOz, 16 of them are around 10 mg/FlOz, and the other 12 are in the range of 16-18 mg/FlOz.
And how many of them come in a 30oz cup? Or come right up to safe daily intake limits in a single can? A: none of them.
Regarding terminology you might compare “hard lemonade” which has a lot more alcohol in it than is typical for lemonade…
And if a company sold that shit with alcohol levels slamming right against safe daily intake levels in a single cup, and placed that shit right next to their regular lemonade with basically no information on the fact that it contains a shit ton of alcohol, didn't have an alcohol taste and allowed free refills, they'd be getting lawsuits up the ass for much the same reason.
Regarding the cup size, let me introduce you to the big gulp range with a “shocking” 690 mg per ‘cup’. It’s quite surprising but a larger drink contains more caffeine.
Jesus christ you couldn't miss the point any harder if you were piss drunk at an archery range.
It is a single cup though. A cup isn't defined as being 8 oz, a cup is a thing that you drink out of. 30 Oz is a big cup, but it's a pretty normal amount of lemonade. Three full 30 Oz cups might be a lot of lemonade, but that much lemonade generally has around 0 milligrams of caffeine
A cup is commonly defined as 8 oz. There is no way that drinking a full 30-oz “cup” three times could be construed as “a single cup” by any definition.
It is not 8 oz. It is an object that you hold in your hand that's meant to contain liquid. A single one of those objects might be called a single cup, regardless of its size
In that sense, stating an amount of caffeine per “cup” is completely meaningless, since they can be most any size. It could mean a coffee cup (5 oz) or a 7-11 Team Gulp cup (128oz), or anything in between or beyond.
I would argue that stating an amount per 8 oz is completely meaningless, and that we should instead state the amount in each cup size that the restaurant sells
Seems pointless, especially if free refills are involved. He could have just as easily drank 11 8-oz cups if they sold them in that size. All it does is make it sound crazier at first glance without changing anything about the facts.
Alcoholic lemonade is an established thing. "Hard" is an industry standard term meaning "alcoholic." It's why you find hard cider, hard lemonade, and hard seltzer near the alcohol.
"Charged" is not standard. Have you ever heard of charged cider? Charged seltzer? It's not a thing. To be sure, I googled "charged cider," and found one result. It is not caffeinated cider.
Try searching for “charged drink”, you find in addition to Panera’s infamous offering: Sprecher charged lemonade, NOS charged citrus, a Coca Cola brand simply called “charged”… pretty much every single result relates to energy drinks of some kind.
I know you saw my other comment but 13 mg/oz is a little above average for an “energy drink”, not unusual at all. Most of the upper range is 300 mg/16 oz = 18.75 mg/oz. Just below that, 200 mg/12 oz is common: 16.67 mg/oz. Then there’s a lot around 160 mg/16 oz = 10 mg/oz. Anything below that and you’re pretty much outside the range of “energy drink”. Heck even regular coffee is around 12 mg/oz (95 mg /cup). So this lemonade has slightly higher caffeine content than coffee.
The only unusual thing is drinking 90 oz in one sitting.